The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate (81 page)

23. “New York State Bills Creating 2 New Agencies Signed by Rockefeller,”
The Daily Bond Buyer
, April 22, 1960; MACT, 256–61; and Collier and Horowitz,
The Rockefellers,
p. 469.

24.
Daily Bond Buyer
, November 1984.

25. Record of these offerings, and of the retention of Caldwell, Trimble, and Mitchell as counsel for them, can be found in issues of
The Daily Bond Buyer
, 1960–67, passim. See also letter to John N. Mitchell from Robert F. Muse, March 11, 1970, JMRC; Maloney letter, op. cit.; and Benjamin and Hurd,
Rockefeller in Retrospect,
p. 85.

26. J. Anthony Lukas,
Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years
(Bantam, 1977), p. 6 (wink); Morrison interview (kingmaker); “The Sharp New Line on Antitrust,”
BusinessWeek
, June 21, 1969.

27. “A Conversation with John Mitchell: Moral Obligation Bonds, the Industry’s Old Days, and More,”
The Bond Buyer
, September 26, 1991 [reprinting previous interviews with Mitchell, including one from November 1984, from which this exchange was taken].

28. Stephen Grover, “Cabinet Enigma: New Attorney General Poses Question Marks on Antitrust Rights,”
Wall Street Journal
, January 17, 1969 (emphasis added).

29. Denniston, “He’s No ‘Gang-Buster’” (honor), and Richard G. Kleindienst,
Justice: The Memoirs of Attorney General Richard Kleindienst
(Jameson, 1985), p. 41 (invariably); and Closing document, Re: Perkins to Mitchell/Sunset Lane, Rye, N.Y., September 30, 1964; and Closing Statement, Sale of Premises, Sunset Lane, Rye, N.Y., by John N. Mitchell and Martha B. Mitchell to Peer T. Pedersen and Lucy S. Pedersen, March 28, 1969, WCHC. On two occasions when he purchased property in Connecticut, lots of nine and twenty-one acres, respectively, contracts show Mitchell paid the seller a total of one dollar. The documents leave unanswered how else, if at all, Mitchell recompensed the sellers; see Contract between William D. Mewhort and Charlotte W. Mewhort, Norwalk, and John N. Mitchell and Martha Beall Mitchell [undated]; and Contract between Ruth E. Boski, Norwalk, and John N. Mitchell and Martha Beall Mitchell [undated; c. March 3, 1961], WCHC.

30. Lewis H. Lapham, “The Attorney General Has Heard It All Before,”
Life
, February 13, 1970; author’s transcript of
Here’s Barbara,
WJLA TV program, [aired] December 4, 1969, WHCA, Tape No. 3545, NARA.

THE HEAVYWEIGHT

1. William Ruckelshaus, interview with author, March 8, 1994.

2. “Martha Mitchell: Dream Is Gone,”
Newsday
, February 19, 1974; and Nixon Mudge Rose Guthrie Alexander & Mitchell Partnership Agreement, December 31, 1966, WCHC. Displeased at not being named partner in the new firm, Trimble was bought off at considerable expense. He received annual payouts tied to the average earnings of the new firm’s partners, with Mitchell himself making up the difference if his annual earnings exceeded the average of the firm’s top three earners. Nixon biographer Jonathan Aitken claimed Mitchell, burning with “eagerness to gain proximity to a future president,” took a 60 percent salary cut to “fit in with the remuneration structure” at Nixon Mudge. Likewise Tom Evans claimed in 1992 that Mitchell “was making twice as much as the other senior partners; he came here [to Nixon Mudge] and took what amounted to a 50 percent cut, but within a couple of years, he was making more money than he had been.” In fact, Mitchell’s tax returns show his salary actually
grew
10 percent after his first year with the new firm, and
58
percent by the second; see, Aitken,
Nixon: A Life
(Regnery, 1993), p. 333; Thomas W. Evans, interview with author, April 23, 1992; and WCHC.

3. Joseph C. Goulden,
The Superlawyers: The Small and Powerful World of the Great Washington Law Firms
(Weybright and Talley, 1971), p. 225; and McLendon (1979),
Martha
, pp. 67–68.

4. Kleindienst,
Justice
, p. 40 (beaten); HN, April 24, 1969 (DDE); The President’s News Conference of August 24, 1960; “Transcript of Nixon’s News Conference on His Defeat by Brown in Race for Governor of California,”
New York Times
, November 8, 1962; Thompson,
The Nixon Presidency
, p. 370 (Hess); and William Safire,
Before the Fall: An Inside View of the Pre-Watergate White House
(Belmont Tower, 1975), pp. 263–64. Estimates of the vote margin in 1960 vary somewhat, with sources as disparate as the Associated Press, the Republican National Committee,
Congressional Quarterly
, and the Clerk of the House of Representatives releasing figures ranging from a low of 111,803 votes to a high of 119,450; see Theodore H. White,
The Making of the President 1960
(Atheneum, 1961), p. 422. Subsequent scholars supported the Nixon camp’s cries of foul play; see Stephen E. Ambrose,
Nixon
, Volume I,
The Education of a Politician 1913–1962
(Touchstone Books, 1987), p. 606 (“Charges of fraud in Texas and Illinois were too widespread, and too persistent, to be entirely without foundation”), and Seymour Hersh,
The Dark Side of Camelot
(Little, Brown, 1997), pp. 132–34.

5. Beth Fallon, “Black-Letter Day for Two Former VIPs,”
New York Daily News
, February 20, 1974.

6. Don Oberdorfer, “Mitchell’s Power Still Unmatched,”
Washington Post
, April 19, 1970, and Safire,
Before the Fall
, p. 263 (heavyweight); Odle interview, (teacher); Gerald S. Strober and Deborah Hart Strober,
Nixon: An Oral
History of His Presidency
(HarperCollins, 1994), p. 294 (Santarelli).

7. Frank van der Linden,
Nixon’s Quest for Peace
(Robert B. Luce, 1972), p. 33.

8. Bruce Oudes, ed.,
From: The President, Richard Nixon’s Secret Files
(Perennial Library, 1990), pp. 11 (end tables), 335 (wines), passim (the press).

9. CI, October 24, 1987 (“Milhous”); and van der Linden,
Nixon’s Quest
, p. 35 (emphasis in original). In fact, Mitchell’s name was added to the firm’s shingle four years
after
Nixon’s was.

10. Viorst, “‘The Justice Department.’”

11. Jack Landau, interviews with author, December 2 and 16, 1993, and January 12, 1994 (shower); CI, January 5, 1988 (mystified), December 15, 1987 (grandson); Henry Kissinger, interview with author, March 30, 1995; and letter from Jerris Leonard to the Friends of John Mitchell, January 10, 2002 (protected).

12. H. R. Haldeman, interview with author, September 26, 1993; Richard Nixon,
The Memoirs of Richard Nixon: Volume 1
(Warner, 1979), pp. 326–27.

13. Denniston, “He’s No ‘Gang-Buster.’”

14. Stephen C. Shadegg,
Winning’s a Lot More Fun
(Macmillan, 1969), p. 109.

15. Evans interview.

16. Jules Witcover,
The Resurrection of Richard Nixon
(G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1970), p. 210.

17. Jeb Stuart Magruder,
An American Life: One Man’s Road to Watergate
(Pocket Books, 1975), p. 58.

18. Leonard Garment,
Crazy Rhythm: My Journey from Brooklyn, Jazz, and Wall Street to Nixon’s White House, Watergate, and Beyond
(Times Books, 1997), p. 119; Thompson,
The Nixon Presidency
, p. 110.

19. Garment,
Crazy Rhythm
, pp. 119–20. Garment’s chronology was confused. He claimed the “Mitchell moment” occurred in Nixon’s office “late in 1967,” with the men’s room proffer coming a few weeks later, at the black-tie dinner; however, Garment also said the dinner was held to celebrate the merger of the Nixon and Mitchell law firms, which occurred January 1, 1967.

20. Leonard Garment, interview with author, March 13, 1992.

21. Grover, “Cabinet Enigma” (news conference); Denniston, “He’s No ‘Gang-Buster’” (bare, hidden, publicity).

22. Ken Adelman, “You Do What Needs to Be Done,”
Washingtonian
, April 1988.

23. Rowland Evans Jr. and Robert D. Novak,
Nixon in the White House: The Frustration of Power
(Vintage, 1972), p. 27 (emphases in original); Oberdorfer, “Mitchell’s Power,” carried a slightly different version of Mitchell’s blunt soliloquy.

24. Relman Morin,
The Associated Press Story of Election 1968
(Pocket, 1969), pp. 135–36.

25. Kleindienst,
Justice
, p. 48.

26. SSC, VII: 2890.

27. Eleanora W. Schoenebaum, ed.,
Profiles of an Era: The Nixon/Ford Years
(Harcourt, Brace, 1979), p. 261 (near-genius); SSC, VII: 2872; Verne A. Stadtman, “The Centennial Record of the University of California” (University of California Press, 1967).

28. Thompson,
The Nixon Presidency
, p. 76; KI, February 9, 1988.

29. KI, February 9, 1988 (S.O.B.); Schoenebaum,
Profiles of an Era
, p. 184; John Ehrlichman,
Witness to Power: The Nixon Years
(Pocket Books, 1982), pp. 2–22.

30. Ehrlichman,
Witness to Power
, pp. 56–57; Kleindienst,
Justice
, p. 48 (carefree); Robert Mardian, interview with author, August 2, 1993 (crowd).

31.
CBS Morning News,
October 6, 1966 (Robert F. Kennedy); Theodore H. White,
The Making of the President 1968
(Atheneum, 1969), p. 138.

32. Witcover,
The Resurrection
, pp. 311–13 (EI Supremo); Herbert G. Klein,
Making It Perfectly Clear
(Doubleday, 1980), pp. 12–13. Klein also recalled (pp. 12–13) groggily taking a call in his villa at midnight and hearing “a woman…screaming into the phone, demanding to speak to John Mitchell. The tone was so high and the words so distorted,” he continued, “that I was embarrassed to have answered the phone…. That was my midnight introduction to Martha Mitchell.”

33. Goldman, “Mr. Law-and-Order” Nixon,
RN
, pp. 382–83.

34. Klein,
Making It Perfectly Clear
, p. 29 (thorough); Lewis Chester, Godfrey Hodgson, and Bruce Page,
An American Melodrama: The Presidential Campaign of 1968
(Literary Guild, 1969), p. 458; Harry S. Dent;
The Prodigal South Returns to Power
(Wiley, 1978), p. 95.

35. Chester, Hodgson, and Page,
An American Melodrama
, pp. 461–63; Dent,
The Prodigal South
, pp. 97–98.

36. “Nixon Said to Bar Southerners’ Bid: Shuns Pledge on Choosing Conservative for Ticket,”
New York Times
, August 7, 1968 (consistent); and Glen Moore, “Richard Nixon: The Southern Strategy and the 1968 Presidential Election,” in Leon Friedman and William F. Levantrosser, eds.,
Richard M. Nixon: Politician, President, Administrator
(Greenwood Press, 1991), pp. 285–97.

37. Hal Bruno, interview with author, February 25, 1994; Kleindienst,
Justice
p. 55; Peter Flanigan, interview with author, October 28, 1993 (no emotion); Nixon,
RN
, pp. 384–85.

38. Nixon’s acceptance speech was reprinted in Richard M. Nixon,
Six Crises
(Pyramid, 1968), pp. v–xvi.

39. Hubert H. Humphrey,
The Education of a Public Man: My Life and Politics
(Doubleday, 1976), p. 437.

40. Nixon,
RN
, p. 395.

41. A. James Reichley, “Elm Street’s New White House Power,”
Fortune
, December 1969; White (1969),
The Making of the President
, p. 363. Mitchell’s analysis proved correct: For every vote lured from Wallace, the Nixon campaign lost a vote to Humphrey; see Robert D. Behn, ed.,
The Ripon Society: The Lessons of Victory
(Dial Press, 1969), pp. 139–40.

42. Fred LaRue, interview with author, August 4, 2003; Morin,
The Associated Press Story
, p. 193.

43. Witcover,
The Resurrection
, p. 366, and UMS 4570 ($34 million); Goldman, “Mr. Law-and-Order” (austerity); Chester, Hodgson, and Page,
An American Melodrama
, p. 612 (mechanical, hardware).

44. Shadegg,
Winning’s a Lot More Fun
, p. 240; Morin,
The Associated Press Story
, pp. 194–95. When Senator Abraham Ribicoff (D-CT) criticized the Chicago police from the podium, host Mayor Richard J. Daley reportedly shouted at Ribicoff: “Fuck you, you Jew son of a bitch, you lousy mother-fucker, go home” see
U.S. v. Dellinger, et al.
(69 CR 180).

45. Shadegg,
Winning’s a Lot More Fun
, p. 240; Morin,
The Associated Press Story
, pp. 194–95. Viorst, “‘The Justice Department’” Reichley, “Elm Street’s New White House Power.”

46. Witcover,
The Resurrection
, p. 444; Morin,
The Associated Press Story
, pp. 194–95; Adelman, “You Do What Needs to Be Done.”

47. Nguyen Cao Ky with Marvin J. Wolf,
Buddha’s Child: My Fight to Save Vietnam
(St. Martin’s, 2002), pp. 290–91.

48. Anna Chennault,
The Education of Anna
(Times Books, 1980), passim; William Bundy,
A Tangled Web: The Making of Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency
(Hill and Wang, 1999), pp. 37, 549ff. Another account suggests Nixon introduced Chennault to John Mitchell in 1967; see Anthony Summers,
The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon
(Viking, 2000), p. 299. Finally, Bui Diem wrote the meeting took place not in Nixon’s apartment, but at his campaign headquarters; see Bui Diem with David Chanoff,
In the Jaws of Victory
(Houghton Mifflin, 1978), p. 237.

49. It is unclear whether Chennault was wiretapped, followed, or both. J. Edgar Hoover’s definitive biography reported the FBI director nixed the idea, fearing disclosure “would put [the FBI] in a most untenable and embarrassing position” see Athan Theoharis and John Stuart Cox,
The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition
(Bantam, 1990), p. 453n. Deputy Director Cartha “Deke” DeLoach told the Senate Watergate committee, in previously unpublished testimony, that Chennault was placed under physical surveillance for “several days” see SSCEX, Cartha D. DeLoach, October 3, 1973. DeLoach later told the Church Committee the FBI wiretapped both the South Vietnamese embassy and Chennault’s telephone; see the committee’s Final Report, Book II, p. 228n. Still later, DeLoach said only the embassy was bugged, but in 1998, he renewed his claim that electronic surveillance was also placed on Chennault; see Bundy,
A Tangled Web
, p. 551n. Only one author has claimed Mitchell was tapped; see Aitken,
Nixon
, p. 365.